As I write this there are two men downstairs in our basement installing our new furnace. In other words, I am sitting in my kitchen, tip-typing away at my computer, while someone else is cutting sheet-metal, wiring, moving heavy shit, and cursing.
I could totally get used to this.
And tonight there shall be heat!
Yes, real honest-to-god heat that will blow forth from grill-covered holes in our floors. And in the morning the house will be heated to a comfortable temperature automatically thanks to the genius invention known as the thermostat.
The prograaaaamable thermostat.
Yes - we are THAT fancy.
It gives me great pleasure to see that all the work we've been doing...all the replumbing of both gas and water, the hanging of ducting, and the constant swearing...it will all finally come to fruition in one! complete! project!
Until now I was beginning to think that DIY was really short for Do-It-Yourself-And-It-Will-Take-Forever-And-You-Will-Never-
Actually-Finish-Any-One-Project.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
and now...a few complaints
Things that are annoying me today:
1) My belly is always getting into the sink these days resulting in my walking around all the time with a big wet spot on my shirt.
2) I had the biggest craving for BBQ flavored Kettle Potato Chips and all my work's vending machine had in it was roasted garlic & herb. I never get cravings. And one of the few times I do and I can't do anything about it.
3) There was this guy on the elevator who was eating a bag of chips. Loudly. BBQ Kettle chips to be exact. And he didn't give me the bag no matter how hard I stared at him. Asshole.
4) This jacket I saw this afternoon on some coworker earlier. It was red plaid and looked like a short bathrobe.
5) Maternity shirts, like the one I'm wearing today, appear to be made for women with small chests. Not that I have a particularly large chest. But it seems that I have numerous maternity shirts that keep riding up over my boobs, as thought my boobs are too big - forcing me to constantly tug the shirt down or else look like I'm wearing a belly shirt. And pregnant women should not wear belly shirts.
6) A co-worker of mine is a sniffle-er. One of those annoying people who refuses to blow their nose when it is runny. As a result, anyone in near proximity must sit and listen to said co-worker suck the snot that is running down their nose back up into their sinuses every 10 seconds.
7) Britney Spears' Halloween costume.
8) I now have Roasted Garlic & Herb breath.
1) My belly is always getting into the sink these days resulting in my walking around all the time with a big wet spot on my shirt.
2) I had the biggest craving for BBQ flavored Kettle Potato Chips and all my work's vending machine had in it was roasted garlic & herb. I never get cravings. And one of the few times I do and I can't do anything about it.
3) There was this guy on the elevator who was eating a bag of chips. Loudly. BBQ Kettle chips to be exact. And he didn't give me the bag no matter how hard I stared at him. Asshole.
4) This jacket I saw this afternoon on some coworker earlier. It was red plaid and looked like a short bathrobe.
5) Maternity shirts, like the one I'm wearing today, appear to be made for women with small chests. Not that I have a particularly large chest. But it seems that I have numerous maternity shirts that keep riding up over my boobs, as thought my boobs are too big - forcing me to constantly tug the shirt down or else look like I'm wearing a belly shirt. And pregnant women should not wear belly shirts.
6) A co-worker of mine is a sniffle-er. One of those annoying people who refuses to blow their nose when it is runny. As a result, anyone in near proximity must sit and listen to said co-worker suck the snot that is running down their nose back up into their sinuses every 10 seconds.
7) Britney Spears' Halloween costume.
8) I now have Roasted Garlic & Herb breath.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Time and time again
At some point in the past 2 weeks time officially sped up and it has me a little annoyed.
We have been going at a reasonable tack, getting ourselves and the house ready for the impending arrival of our baby. But it has become very clear to me of late that we still have at least 173 things left to do, and only 3 months to do them in.
Or, 97 days.
Or, 14 weekends.
And that's only if the kid comes when he's expected.
Now, there was a time in my life - my sans fetus life to be exact - that 3 months felt like all the time in the world.
But given the fact that I have NO IDEA what having a baby in our house is going to do to our lives, I have to plan for us to check everything off our freakishly long list - so we don't have to deal with it after the baby is already here. I.e. plan for the worst case scenario.
Because - that is what I do.
I plan for the lamest, shittiest, most annoying situation. Mostly to annoy the piss out of my husband - the eternal optimist. But also because I like it better when I'm pleasantly surprised if things work out better than expected.
So I suppose in a case like this, the worst case situation would be that all we'll be capable of doing for a while is making sure the baby is fed and cleaned and loved. And if there IS any free time, that will be spent sleeping or eating.
Which doesn't leave much room for taking care of all the things we didn't get around to before the baby was born.
Like gutting the nursery so we can insulate the walls and hang sheetrock that doesn't look like it was hung by a contractor with only 3 fingers on each hand.
Or remodel the bathroom so we no longer have to avoid touching the walls in the shower because they are so disgusting and filthy from years of poor maintenance they are probably more petri dish than tile and grout at this point.
I can't even wrap my head around buying nursery furniture right now given there is NO nursery ready to set the furniture up in.
And then...and THEN...an order of books I placed from Amazon.com came last night. And I near about shoved them back in the mailbox.
Read?
I don't have time to read!
What the hell was I thinking when I ordered these books? Apparently I was playing a practical joke on myself when I ordered them.
Although I NEED to read them.
Being that they're all about birthing and taking care of an infant and all.
One might like to know what exactly to expect about the whole labor and delivery process.
Especially if one is going to have a baby IN 3 MONTHS.
And despite all this crap and worry that's going through my head, I'm fully enjoying the whole experience.
Something tells me that in a very short amount of time I'm going to look back on this time as the "quiet part of our lives".
We have been going at a reasonable tack, getting ourselves and the house ready for the impending arrival of our baby. But it has become very clear to me of late that we still have at least 173 things left to do, and only 3 months to do them in.
Or, 97 days.
Or, 14 weekends.
And that's only if the kid comes when he's expected.
Now, there was a time in my life - my sans fetus life to be exact - that 3 months felt like all the time in the world.
But given the fact that I have NO IDEA what having a baby in our house is going to do to our lives, I have to plan for us to check everything off our freakishly long list - so we don't have to deal with it after the baby is already here. I.e. plan for the worst case scenario.
Because - that is what I do.
I plan for the lamest, shittiest, most annoying situation. Mostly to annoy the piss out of my husband - the eternal optimist. But also because I like it better when I'm pleasantly surprised if things work out better than expected.
So I suppose in a case like this, the worst case situation would be that all we'll be capable of doing for a while is making sure the baby is fed and cleaned and loved. And if there IS any free time, that will be spent sleeping or eating.
Which doesn't leave much room for taking care of all the things we didn't get around to before the baby was born.
Like gutting the nursery so we can insulate the walls and hang sheetrock that doesn't look like it was hung by a contractor with only 3 fingers on each hand.
Or remodel the bathroom so we no longer have to avoid touching the walls in the shower because they are so disgusting and filthy from years of poor maintenance they are probably more petri dish than tile and grout at this point.
I can't even wrap my head around buying nursery furniture right now given there is NO nursery ready to set the furniture up in.
And then...and THEN...an order of books I placed from Amazon.com came last night. And I near about shoved them back in the mailbox.
Read?
I don't have time to read!
What the hell was I thinking when I ordered these books? Apparently I was playing a practical joke on myself when I ordered them.
Although I NEED to read them.
Being that they're all about birthing and taking care of an infant and all.
One might like to know what exactly to expect about the whole labor and delivery process.
Especially if one is going to have a baby IN 3 MONTHS.
And despite all this crap and worry that's going through my head, I'm fully enjoying the whole experience.
Something tells me that in a very short amount of time I'm going to look back on this time as the "quiet part of our lives".
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Loose criteria
“I really liked this doula – I feel a lot more at ease about this whole ‘giving birth’ thing I’m supposed to do in 3 months after having just met her.”
“Yea? Well that’s good.”
“Did you like her?”
“Yea sure.”
“No really, did you? Enough to spend possibly 30 hours with her?”
“The woman comes equipped with an iPod docking station with speakers. She passed any criteria I had when she told us that.”
“Slut.”
Friday, September 28, 2007
At least 5 toes...
Before getting pregnant I had wondered at what point you actually feel like a ‘mother’.
And after I found out I was pregnant I wondered if it wasn’t going to be until the baby was actually born, because just being pregnant wasn’t actually enough to give me mothering feelings as it turned out.
That is, until I started bleeding and had no idea what it meant – for me, my baby, or for my body.
And the idea that this was the foreshadowing of something more serious, or worst of all a miscarriage?
Suddenly you find out that amidst all the panic, and fear, and denial that this could be happening to you, there is also the undeniable feeling that you are the mother and this is your baby that’s at risk.
And a very new mother at that.
And what do mothers do when there’s something wrong?
Well, if they’re me, they apparently call their doctor at 10 at night and blubber about ‘bleeding’ and ‘what’s going on?’ and ‘is the baby ok?’.
And in between the blubbering and jagged breathing the doctor tried to advise, and suggested that we go to the ER. That an ultrasound should be done just to make sure that it wasn’t anything serious.
I’m not sure that the idea of going to an ER made me feel better or worse for that matter. I pretty much knew when I first dialed my doctor that there was a trip to the emergency room in our near future.
But my call to her left me feeling neither consoled nor informed about what was going on. Other than the fact that some bleeding can be normal – she didn’t really say anything else to make me feel at ease.
So we soberly got in the car and drove intoBerkeley
About half way there I started to feel rather calm.
As I’m sure Trevor found rather consoling.
I was fine.
The baby was fine.
There was no way that something horrible could be wrong.
That and the baby had begun it’s usual 10pm-12am yoga routine right about when we got in the car.
What could possible be wrong with the baby if the baby was moving around as usual?
And then it hit me.
We’re going to the hospital.
A hospital where we will be getting an ultrasound.
You know what happens during ultrasounds? Stuff happens.
Like finding out the gender of the baby.
And just like that I went from feeling 100% worried about the baby to about 20% worried and 80% excited that we were getting an ultrasound at 19 weeks and NOT 26 weeks.
We were going to find out what we were having!
Of course the 20% of me that was still worried seemed to have a strong hold on me.
But I felt much better when the triage nurse told me that I probably had nothing to worry about.
And then they took us in for the ultrasound and I got to hear the little heartbeat – all doubt and worry went away.
And when the tech said “the baby looks fine, everything is the way it should be” all I had left to ask was “can you see what it is?”
“Well, this isn’t your official anatomy ultrasound – but I can definitely tell you that you are having a little boy.”
And here’s a little keepsake for our fridge:
And after I found out I was pregnant I wondered if it wasn’t going to be until the baby was actually born, because just being pregnant wasn’t actually enough to give me mothering feelings as it turned out.
That is, until I started bleeding and had no idea what it meant – for me, my baby, or for my body.
And the idea that this was the foreshadowing of something more serious, or worst of all a miscarriage?
Suddenly you find out that amidst all the panic, and fear, and denial that this could be happening to you, there is also the undeniable feeling that you are the mother and this is your baby that’s at risk.
And a very new mother at that.
And what do mothers do when there’s something wrong?
Well, if they’re me, they apparently call their doctor at 10 at night and blubber about ‘bleeding’ and ‘what’s going on?’ and ‘is the baby ok?’.
And in between the blubbering and jagged breathing the doctor tried to advise, and suggested that we go to the ER. That an ultrasound should be done just to make sure that it wasn’t anything serious.
I’m not sure that the idea of going to an ER made me feel better or worse for that matter. I pretty much knew when I first dialed my doctor that there was a trip to the emergency room in our near future.
But my call to her left me feeling neither consoled nor informed about what was going on. Other than the fact that some bleeding can be normal – she didn’t really say anything else to make me feel at ease.
So we soberly got in the car and drove into
About half way there I started to feel rather calm.
As I’m sure Trevor found rather consoling.
I was fine.
The baby was fine.
There was no way that something horrible could be wrong.
That and the baby had begun it’s usual 10pm-12am yoga routine right about when we got in the car.
What could possible be wrong with the baby if the baby was moving around as usual?
And then it hit me.
We’re going to the hospital.
A hospital where we will be getting an ultrasound.
You know what happens during ultrasounds? Stuff happens.
Like finding out the gender of the baby.
And just like that I went from feeling 100% worried about the baby to about 20% worried and 80% excited that we were getting an ultrasound at 19 weeks and NOT 26 weeks.
We were going to find out what we were having!
Of course the 20% of me that was still worried seemed to have a strong hold on me.
But I felt much better when the triage nurse told me that I probably had nothing to worry about.
And then they took us in for the ultrasound and I got to hear the little heartbeat – all doubt and worry went away.
And when the tech said “the baby looks fine, everything is the way it should be” all I had left to ask was “can you see what it is?”
“Well, this isn’t your official anatomy ultrasound – but I can definitely tell you that you are having a little boy.”
And here’s a little keepsake for our fridge:
And we know he has at least a right foot with 5 toes:
Monday, September 24, 2007
A Penchant for Drama
Quick note: BABY AND MOM ARE ALIVE AND FINE.
After receiving some concerned comments, and then rereading my last post, I realized that I may have a knack for writing with a bit more drama and suspense when I am both pregnant and up to my eyeballs in work.
Who knew.
My apologies to anyone that may have feared for the worst for me and the beh beh.
I will try and finish my 2-part 'dramatization' in the next day or two.
But my job may have other plans for me.
After receiving some concerned comments, and then rereading my last post, I realized that I may have a knack for writing with a bit more drama and suspense when I am both pregnant and up to my eyeballs in work.
Who knew.
My apologies to anyone that may have feared for the worst for me and the beh beh.
I will try and finish my 2-part 'dramatization' in the next day or two.
But my job may have other plans for me.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Letters of complaint to upper management
It would appear that I've fallen behind on my blogging.
A letter submitted to upper management has indicated that there has been some dissatisfaction with the frequency, or lack thereof, of blogging at this here blog.
Big surprise there.
I bet half of you have fallen out of your chairs.
To be honest, I've almost blogged about 5 times in the past few weeks, but have stopped because I was procrastinating on telling the story I wanted to tell.
Not because the story is hard to tell - just drawn out. And there's a bit of news at the end of the story that I wanted to break to a few people on the phone first before I published over the vastness that is the internet.
Now that the phone calls have been made, I can now safely blast into the vastness.
This blog is probably going to be broken into 2 parts.
And those of you who are familiar with my other blog realize that this means I'll get only part of the story down and then allude to the final entry and never ever ever get around to it.
Ever.
Ahem.
Can't really say anything to lead you all to believe otherwise.
But this one is only a 2-part story...so I'm sure this shouldn't be too hard for me to complete.
And I SWEAR! This one I will finish.
Girl Scout's honor.
(I'm totally holding my hand up in the girl scout's honor salute right now)
So.
This whole story kind of goes back, to ohhhhhh...my doctor's appointment roughly around 16 weeks.
By this point in time Trevor and I were both dying to find out the sex of the baby. We knew that typically you would have to wait at least until 18 weeks for a gender determination ultrasound - 20-22 weeks for a more accurate determination. So the idea of waiting another 2-6 weeks was pretty much annoying.
But we had no choice, and we would put up with the waiting.
And so by the time we made it to my 16 week doctor appointment all I wanted to do was get the form from my doctor to allow us to set up our ultrasound at 20 weeks.
That way I'd have something ON THE CALENDAR.
And 20 weeks sounded good to me - not to soon, not too late.
It was going to be 20 weeks.
4 more weeks.
One month.
Just 30 more days.
So imagine how much I wanted to jump off the examining table and wring my doctor's neck when she informed us that we would not be having our next ultrasound until 26 weeks.
I should point out that I really like my doctor. She's great. Laid back, good sense of humor peppered with the right amount of sarcasm. Old enough to have a decent amount of wisdom under her belt, but not so old that she might employ the use of leeches during my labor...
But this was not news I wanted to hear from her.
26 weeks?
That was 10 more weeks!
DO THE MATH PEOPLE
That's, like, 70 days! A long amount of time that no one should be expected to endure!
And I'm PREGNANT.
You do not tell a pregnant women something she does not want to hear!
It might elicit one of the following responses:
a) crying
b) yelling
c) crying spontaneously interrupted with yelling
d) yelling spontaneously interrupted with crying
But I took the news ok I suppose.
Wanted to yell and all. But I kept that to myself.
She explained that the insurance companies (oh yes, how DID I know they had something to do with this) don't really like to pay for ultrasounds.
In their humble opinion, ultrasounds should only really be used to determine 'issues', 'life threatening' concerns, to make 'diagnosis'.
Blah blah fucking blah.
And apparently ultrasounds during pregnancy aren't really necessary as far as they're concerned.
But they succumb to paying for at least one - because FOR CRYING OUT LOUD a doctor and patient should at least have the right to make sure the pregnancy is HEALTHY.
So it's very common for insurance to pay for at least one ultrasound.
Two on the other hand is a little more tricky. And my doctor's office is usually able to bend the insurance assholes to their will and make them pay for at least 2 - one to make sure the pregnancy is healthy early on (8 weeks), and one to make sure it's progressing safely (at 26 weeks).
And so we left the doctor's office with our heads hung low - with the knowledge that it would not be for another 10 weeks that we would find out the gender of our baby.
Woe was us.
Life was over as we knew it.
But we took it like the supposed grown-ups that we are, and went about our day as usual.
And it didn't take long before we started looking into those 3D/4D ultrasound clinics that are popping up everywhere, considering the possibility of just paying for an ultrasound out of pocket.
So we could know 6 weeks early.
Cuz I might have died if I waited another 6 weeks.
And $100 for a 'gender determination' session seemed like an ok price to pay just so we could stop calling the baby 'it'.
And then about 3 weeks later, at 19 weeks, life threw us a little unexpected event - and we found ourselves sitting in the waiting room of the Alta Bates ER in Berkeley at 11 at night.
On a school night.
On THAT note...I'm off to go enjoy my weekend.
I'll finish this one up next week.
A letter submitted to upper management has indicated that there has been some dissatisfaction with the frequency, or lack thereof, of blogging at this here blog.
Big surprise there.
I bet half of you have fallen out of your chairs.
To be honest, I've almost blogged about 5 times in the past few weeks, but have stopped because I was procrastinating on telling the story I wanted to tell.
Not because the story is hard to tell - just drawn out. And there's a bit of news at the end of the story that I wanted to break to a few people on the phone first before I published over the vastness that is the internet.
Now that the phone calls have been made, I can now safely blast into the vastness.
This blog is probably going to be broken into 2 parts.
And those of you who are familiar with my other blog realize that this means I'll get only part of the story down and then allude to the final entry and never ever ever get around to it.
Ever.
Ahem.
Can't really say anything to lead you all to believe otherwise.
But this one is only a 2-part story...so I'm sure this shouldn't be too hard for me to complete.
And I SWEAR! This one I will finish.
Girl Scout's honor.
(I'm totally holding my hand up in the girl scout's honor salute right now)
So.
This whole story kind of goes back, to ohhhhhh...my doctor's appointment roughly around 16 weeks.
By this point in time Trevor and I were both dying to find out the sex of the baby. We knew that typically you would have to wait at least until 18 weeks for a gender determination ultrasound - 20-22 weeks for a more accurate determination. So the idea of waiting another 2-6 weeks was pretty much annoying.
But we had no choice, and we would put up with the waiting.
And so by the time we made it to my 16 week doctor appointment all I wanted to do was get the form from my doctor to allow us to set up our ultrasound at 20 weeks.
That way I'd have something ON THE CALENDAR.
And 20 weeks sounded good to me - not to soon, not too late.
It was going to be 20 weeks.
4 more weeks.
One month.
Just 30 more days.
So imagine how much I wanted to jump off the examining table and wring my doctor's neck when she informed us that we would not be having our next ultrasound until 26 weeks.
I should point out that I really like my doctor. She's great. Laid back, good sense of humor peppered with the right amount of sarcasm. Old enough to have a decent amount of wisdom under her belt, but not so old that she might employ the use of leeches during my labor...
But this was not news I wanted to hear from her.
26 weeks?
That was 10 more weeks!
DO THE MATH PEOPLE
That's, like, 70 days! A long amount of time that no one should be expected to endure!
And I'm PREGNANT.
You do not tell a pregnant women something she does not want to hear!
It might elicit one of the following responses:
a) crying
b) yelling
c) crying spontaneously interrupted with yelling
d) yelling spontaneously interrupted with crying
But I took the news ok I suppose.
Wanted to yell and all. But I kept that to myself.
She explained that the insurance companies (oh yes, how DID I know they had something to do with this) don't really like to pay for ultrasounds.
In their humble opinion, ultrasounds should only really be used to determine 'issues', 'life threatening' concerns, to make 'diagnosis'.
Blah blah fucking blah.
And apparently ultrasounds during pregnancy aren't really necessary as far as they're concerned.
But they succumb to paying for at least one - because FOR CRYING OUT LOUD a doctor and patient should at least have the right to make sure the pregnancy is HEALTHY.
So it's very common for insurance to pay for at least one ultrasound.
Two on the other hand is a little more tricky. And my doctor's office is usually able to bend the insurance assholes to their will and make them pay for at least 2 - one to make sure the pregnancy is healthy early on (8 weeks), and one to make sure it's progressing safely (at 26 weeks).
And so we left the doctor's office with our heads hung low - with the knowledge that it would not be for another 10 weeks that we would find out the gender of our baby.
Woe was us.
Life was over as we knew it.
But we took it like the supposed grown-ups that we are, and went about our day as usual.
And it didn't take long before we started looking into those 3D/4D ultrasound clinics that are popping up everywhere, considering the possibility of just paying for an ultrasound out of pocket.
So we could know 6 weeks early.
Cuz I might have died if I waited another 6 weeks.
And $100 for a 'gender determination' session seemed like an ok price to pay just so we could stop calling the baby 'it'.
And then about 3 weeks later, at 19 weeks, life threw us a little unexpected event - and we found ourselves sitting in the waiting room of the Alta Bates ER in Berkeley at 11 at night.
On a school night.
On THAT note...I'm off to go enjoy my weekend.
I'll finish this one up next week.
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